Companionway Continued...
To remove the companionway hatch board rails, you remove the interior teak trim, which gives access to the screws that hold the rails in place.
Judging from the condition of the holes, the rails have been removed a bunch of times over the years.
Some of the holes were damaged to the point of them being enlarged to the size of the screw heads.
Not good, but easily solved.
Out came the the epoxy, drill bits etc., and I potted all the holes.
Around the edge of the companionway, there is some type of filler material used between the inner and outer skin.
On my boat, based on the debris from the holes, it doesn't appear to be wood coring. It's likely similar to the material used in the hatch itself. Polyester adhesive filler ? I'm not sure.
There were some small voids between the inner an outer skin, so I could not simply fill the holes with epoxy.
I used some left over six10 thick epoxy. Because the original mixing nozzle was not reusable, I simply dispensed it into a plastic mixing cup, and mixed it by hand.
With tape over both sides of the holes, I injected it into the holes, waiting a bit between each injection.
It's thick enough that it didn't simply sag/ooze/run down into the panel.
Since there wasn't wood coring, I wasn't looking to seal the holes 100%. As long as they were 95% filled, which gave the screw heads something to sit against, I figured it was ok.
The next time I re-bed the rails, I may inject some more epoxy and redrill again, to fill the few gaps that were left so that they are 100% sealed. (just in case I'm wrong about no wood being in the core there)
As long as the butyl tape does it's job, the water won't get in anyhow.
Re-drilling the holes was a bit fussy.
None of the original holes were straight. Most were off both axis.
To make sure I redrilled them in the same location, I first drilled through with a thin drill bit.
While slowly drilling, I watched, from the edge of the panel. to make sure the other end of the bit would come out in the original spot.
Original hole filled with epoxy, and a small pilot hole made in same location
Once the small hole was drilled, I could see where it came out. They all came out in the right spot, but not 100% exactly in the middle of the original hole location.
I then used a slightly larger to drill through again, while making any small adjustments to the angles, so that it came out in the right spot.
I then drilled again with the final bit size, and used a counter sink bit on both ends of the holes.
Hole drilled to final size, and counter sunk.
One countersink was so the heads would be flush with the interior skin, the other countersink was so the butyl tape would seal better.
Some butyl tape, line up the newly varnished rails, tighten the screws.... done.
(After a while I'll have to re-tighten the screws so that the butyl tape is sealed as well as possible)
Sure looks better than the temporary rails I made of spruce !
Next up:
Time to remove the thruhull depth transducer and solve the leak.